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A short class with Sarah and her students. The other ways are under More.
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Before we summarise a poem we must know who speaks and to whom. Who is the speaker here?
A Jewish refugee, I think, because the poem is about people forced out by the Nazis.
And he is talking to someone close to him. He keeps turning to a loved one.
Good. The relationship is not spelled out, but most readers imagine a husband and wife or a pair of partners. Notice also that no names are given.
So they could be any refugees.
Exactly. The namelessness is what lets two people stand for thousands.
Let us trace the poem as a journey. Where does it begin?
In a big city where there is no home for the couple. Then they remember their lost country and their expired passports.
After that they go to the consul, then to a committee, then to a public rally. Everyone rejects them in a different way.
And then?
The thunder that turns out to be Hitler's voice, followed by the pet, the fish and the birds.
And the last two stanzas are a dream of a huge building and a plain with soldiers searching for them.
That is the whole poem in five steps: no home, closed doors, the threat, free creatures, and a dream and a hunt.
Can I use lines from the poem in my summary?
A summary should be in your own words. For a poem that means describing each image rather than copying it. If you need to point to a detail, give the stanza number.
What should I leave out?
Your opinions and long explanations. Save those for the explanation and the critical appreciation.
And how do I end?
With the poem's own ending: the soldiers still searching. Do not invent a happy ending.
an unnamed Jewish refugee speaks to a loved one, and because neither is named they can stand for all refugees.
no home (stanzas 1-3), closed doors of consul, committee and rally (4-6), Hitler's threat (7), free creatures (8-10), and a dream and a hunt (11-12).
the poem moves from the couple's personal loss to institutions and then to political violence.
a pet, fish and birds enjoy the welcome and freedom that the refugees are denied.
no rescue arrives, and the poem stops with the soldiers still searching, which is part of its protest.
One-sentence summary: A Jewish refugee tells his companion how every door, from the consul's to the committee's, has closed on them, until even their dreams are filled with soldiers hunting them.
Fifty-word summary: A Jewish refugee tells his companion what they have met since losing their home: a city with no room for them, a lost country, useless passports, a consul who denies their existence, a committee that delays, a rally that blames them, Hitler's threat, and finally soldiers searching a snow-covered plain.
Stanza-grouped outline: Stanzas 1-3: home, country and papers lost. Stanzas 4-6: consul, committee and rally reject them. Stanza 7: Hitler's threat. Stanzas 8-10: a pet, fish and birds are freer than they are. Stanzas 11-12: a dream of closed doors and a hunt on a snowy plain.
First the home, the land, the pass / then three doors of wood and brass, consul, committee, crowd / thunder rolls, the voice is loud / pet, fish, bird go happy by / dream and soldiers close the sky.
Imagine a traveller who knocks on door after door in a vast city. At the first, a clerk says that without papers she does not exist. At the second, a kind committee asks her to return in twelve months. At the third, a crowd accuses her of taking their livelihood. Walking out of town she passes a pampered pet, fish in a harbour and birds in a wood, all freer than she is. That night she dreams of an enormous building with no door that belongs to her, and by morning soldiers are at her heels.
Cats Can Pass; Closed Counters Cry; Thunder Pets Fly Backwards; Dreams Stop - City, Country, Passports; Consul, Committee, Crowd; Thunder; Pets, Fish, Birds; Dream, Soldiers.
S.T.O.R.Y. - Searching for a home (stanzas 1-3), Turned away by officials and the crowd (4-6), Ominous thunder (7), Reversed values with a pet, fish and birds (8-10), Yearning dream that ends in a hunt (11-12).
Term
Who speaks in 'Refugee Blues' and to whom?
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What are the five movements of the poem?
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What do stanzas 8 to 10 have in common?
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What does the speaker dream in stanza 11?
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How does the poem end?
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The voice that tells a poem, who may be different from the poet; here, an unnamed Jewish refugee.
The person to whom the speaker talks; in this poem, a loved one whom the speaker addresses directly.
Systematic ill-treatment of people because of who they are, such as their religion or race.
Having no country that recognises you as its citizen, and so no government bound to protect you.
An official who represents his country in a foreign city and handles visas and help for travellers.
A landing place beside a harbour where ships are loaded and passengers board.
A long-lived evergreen tree, often found in graveyards and old villages in Britain.
A line or phrase that returns at regular intervals in a poem or song.
In 'Refugee Blues' a Jewish refugee speaks to a loved one as the two move from office to office and from fear to fear in a world that has no room for them. In twelve short stanzas the poem takes them from a vast, unwelcoming city to a snow-covered plain where soldiers are searching for them.
The speaker, a refugee from Nazi persecution, tells his companion what they have met since losing their home. The first three stanzas establish the homelessness: a city with room for everyone but them, a lost country that can still be found on a map, and passports that cannot be renewed like a tree in spring. The next three show the doors closing: a consul who treats a person without papers as non-existent, a committee that politely asks them to wait, and a rally where a speaker blames refugees for taking people's livelihood. In stanza 7 the threat of Hitler is heard like thunder; in stanzas 8 to 10 a pampered pet, fish and birds enjoy freedoms the couple lack; and in stanzas 11 and 12 a dream of a vast building with no door for them gives way to soldiers searching a snowy plain. The poem offers no rescue, only the witness of its two speakers.
The poem is told in the first person. The speaker is an unnamed Jewish refugee from Germany, who speaks to a loved one, usually imagined as a wife or partner although the poem does not say. In the closing line of each stanza he turns to this listener directly, and the pair speak together as 'we' while the speaker sometimes tells what 'I' saw or heard. Neither person has a name, and neither does the city, so the couple can stand for any refugees anywhere.
The poem opens in a large city. The speaker observes that it has homes of every kind, from grand houses to wretched hovels, and yet none is open to the couple. In the second stanza he remembers the country they once called home, a land they had loved and which a map of the world still shows, but which they can no longer enter. The third stanza turns to a yew tree from home that puts out fresh growth every spring, and contrasts it with their old passports, which cannot be renewed in the same natural way. In three stanzas the speaker has lost a house, a country and the document that proves who he is.
The consul they approach tells them sharply that a person without a passport has, as far as the authorities are concerned, ceased to exist, and the speaker answers that they are still alive. Next the speaker goes before a committee. It offers him a chair and polite words but advises him to return after a year, and he asks what the two of them are meant to do today. In the sixth stanza they attend a public rally where a speaker argues that admitting refugees would take food and work away from local people, and the couple realise that he is talking about them. Officials reject them politely, and the crowd rejects them angrily.
The speaker takes a far-off rumble overhead for the sound of a storm, but it is something worse: the voice of Hitler, marking people like them for death. They understand that they are in the dictator's thoughts. The poem's focus shifts from the indifference of officials and neighbours to open, deliberate threat.
Three images of the free world follow. In the eighth stanza the speaker sees a pampered pet dog in clothes and a cat that a household lets indoors, and he notes that these animals are welcome where Jewish refugees are not. In the ninth the couple stand at a harbour and watch fish swimming at liberty only a short distance away, while they themselves cannot move on. In the tenth they find themselves in a wood where birds sing without a care, untroubled by the politics that torments human beings, because they are not human. Each stanza ends on the same bitter note: creatures enjoy the welcome or the freedom that people deny to refugees.
In the eleventh stanza the speaker dreams of an immense building with levels, windows and doorways without number, and finds that none of them belongs to the pair. In the last stanza the dream gives place to a wide open plain under snow, where great numbers of soldiers move back and forth, searching for the couple. The speaker's last word to his companion confirms that the hunt is for the two of them.
There is no rescue, no change of heart among the officials and no final consolation. The poem stops with the soldiers still searching. The abrupt close leaves the reader to ask what the world will do for such people, and that open ending is part of the poem's protest.